Mel Reynolds deported from Zimbabwe, official says

Mel Reynolds served as an Illinois congressman from 1993-1995. In 1994, the sitting congressman was indicted for sexual assault and criminal sexual abuse for a relationship with a 16-year-old volunteer during his 1992 campaign. Reynolds was convicted in 1995 on sexual assault and solicitation of child pornography charges and resigned on Oct. 1 the same year.

Tribune staff and wire reports

Former U.S. congressman Mel Reynolds was deported from Zimbabwe on Sunday after he pleaded guilty to staying in the southern African country on an expired visa, a senior immigration official said Monday.

Reynolds, 62, was arrested at a Harare hotel last week and was fined $100 by a magistrate court. But the court dismissed additional pornography charges against him on a technicality after the prosecution failed to clear the charges through the Prosecutor-General's office as required by law.

"We deported him as ordered by the court, but I am sorry that we are not in a position to discuss details of what flight or route we put him on," immigration officer Francis Mabika told Reuters. "Those are security issues."

Although Reynolds pleaded guilty to the visa charge, he had denied charges he was found with nude pictures and videos of women and men having sexual intercourse on his mobile phone.

The pornography charge was an alleged violation of Zimbabwe's Censorship and Entertainments Control Act, according to Reynolds' lawyer, Arthur Gurira, and carried a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine. Pornography is banned in Zimbabwe.

Reynolds had been jailed since Feb. 17 after his arrest at the Bronte Hotel in the capital city of Harare.

Johnnie Carson, who was the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1995 to 1997 and is now a senior adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, said Friday deportations from Zimbabwe "are not common."

"They're rather unusual and they're generally done in sensitive situations where a government does not want to have a lingering political issue with a case or an individual involved in a case," he said. "It becomes an easy way to dispose of what could become a delicate, difficult or embarrassing case."

The state-owned Herald newspaper reported Tuesday that Reynolds had run up $24,500 in unpaid hotel bills.

Reynolds, a former Rhodes scholar, was a fast-rising star in the U.S. Democratic party when he was forced to resign in 1995 after being convicted of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography.

Reynolds' troubles in Zimbabwe come about a year after he ran unsuccessfully for his old congressional seat under the slogan of "Redemption."

In recent years he had recast himself as a champion of U.S. investment in Africa.

According to a Herald newspaper report, Reynolds was recently involved in a deal to construct a $145 million five-star Hilton Hotel and office complex there.

A spokesperson for Hilton Worldwide said Friday it had not finalized an agreement to build or develop a hotel in Zimbabwe and had no relationship with Reynolds.

The Reuters news service contributed from Zimbabwe. Katherine Skiba reported from Washington.